Page 63 of She Didn’t See It Coming

Only an hour ago, Donna had received a phone call from Detective Salter, telling her that her son-in-law has been arrested for the murder of her daughter, and that Paige Mason has also been arrested.

After she’d gotten off the phone, and blurted the news to Lizzie, Donna had run to the bathroom and thrown up.

She sat on the floor tiles, heaving. Her beloved daughter had been betrayed, not only by her husband, but by her best friend.

Then Jim had arrived home from the corner store.

When they told him the news he’d collapsed onto the sofa and had remained there, almost catatonic.

Now Donna is driving Lizzie’s car on her way to the condo to gather some things of Clara’s before they pick her up from day care.

Lizzie is beside her, in the passenger seat, rigid.

Lizzie has keys to the condo and is on the list of people allowed to collect Clara from the day care.

“I can’t believe it,” Lizzie says again, her voice hollow. “Not Sam.”

Of course, Sam , Donna wants to say, but she holds her tongue.

In spite of everything, she’s relieved, because after she and Jim had read everything in that repulsive Facebook group, Lizzie’s awful posts, she’d been filled with a terrible uncertainty.

She had thought it was possible that Lizzie was mentally ill.

And God help her, she’d thought—however briefly—that it was possible that Lizzie had murdered her own sister.

She’d run to the bathroom and thrown up then too.

But now they have arrested Sam and Paige. Donna is glad to finally have an answer, to know. But Lizzie is having a hard time accepting the truth about Sam. Donna glances at her daughter and says, “Honey, Sam’s not who you think he is.”

Donna parks outside the building, as there is no one in the apartment to buzz them into the underground garage. They make their way inside. There are no reporters anymore. Presumably, Donna thinks, they saw Sam being taken away in handcuffs earlier and followed him to the police station.

As they gather up the things that Clara will need for the next few days, Donna begins to think of the daunting task ahead of her.

She must keep living, although her beloved Bryden is dead.

She must get through the pain and spectacle of a trial.

She must officially adopt her granddaughter and bring her up, must somehow help her deal with the trauma that life has dealt her when Donna can hardly deal with it herself.

And someday, she will have to tell Clara the ugly truth.

Donna must also come to terms with what Lizzie has done and find a way to support her somehow. She supposes that she and Jim will have to move back to Albany. It’s not the retirement she’d imagined. She doesn’t know if she can do it.

Suddenly Donna sags onto the sofa in Bryden’s living room. She gazes around in horror, imagining what must have happened here, with Bryden, and Sam and Paige. She doesn’t think she can go on.

“Mom?” Lizzie is kneeling down beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Donna sees that there are tears in her daughter’s eyes.

“You have to stay strong, Mom. Clara needs you. I need you.” She adds, “And I will help.”

Donna looks at Lizzie with the faintest stirring of hope, and nods.

“Let’s go,” Lizzie says. “I’ll drive.”

As they’re leaving the apartment, the elevator pings, the doors slide open, and a woman steps out, holding a little girl by the hand as she starts down the corridor. She stops abruptly when she sees them.

“Angela,” Lizzie says.

So this is Angela, Donna thinks, and Savanah. She’d never met them. The other woman stares back at the two of them, clearly distressed.

“Have you heard?” Lizzie asks.

Angela nods.

“Heard what, Mommy?” the little girl asks, looking up at her mother with her head tipped back.

“Nothing, Savanah.” Angela opens her door and ushers her daughter inside, closing it firmly behind them, as if attempting to shut out the rest of the world.

···

Sam faces the detectives with alarm. His attorney is beside him, her face creased in concern. The stakes have changed; he has now been arrested for murder. And there must be a reason.

Detective Salter begins, “Paige has told us everything.”

Sam swallows. He glances at his lawyer, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and opens them again. “Okay, yes, I was sleeping with Paige. We agreed that we wouldn’t tell you because it wouldn’t look good. For me. But she means nothing to me, really.”

There’s a pause before the detective responds. “I don’t think you understand,” Detective Salter says. “Paige told us everything. She told us how you killed your wife.”

He almost stops breathing. “What? No. No, that’s not true. I didn’t kill Bryden! Why would she say that?”

“She said you then called her to the scene. She said that when she arrived at the apartment, Bryden was already dead. That you told her you’d had an argument and that you’d smothered her with a plastic bag.”

The detective’s face swims before him; there’s that tightness in his chest again, the feeling of being gripped in a vise.

The detective continues. “She said you asked her to carry the suitcase with Bryden’s body in it down to the basement. That she didn’t want to, but you persuaded her to do it because it was too risky for you—that you might be seen and recognized.”

Sam feels his body go cold all over.

“She’s lying! That never happened!” he cries. The two detectives look back at him stonily. “It’s not true. I didn’t kill her!” He turns in desperation to his lawyer, but she says nothing. Even his lawyer looks like she doubts him.

This can’t be happening.

“She says that you told her to get rid of Bryden’s clothes,” Salter says.

“No, that’s not true. None of this is true.”

“Why would Paige say it if it weren’t true?” Detective Salter asks. “She can’t live with it anymore. She’s going to testify against you.”

Sam shakes his head, over and over, the vise on his chest getting tighter and tighter.

“What did you do with your burner phone, Sam?”

“What burner phone? I’ve never had a burner phone!”

The interrogation continues, and he protests his innocence again and again, but they don’t believe him.

He feels like he’s in a dream state, that none of this is real.

He’d been an awful husband, he knows that.

He’d been abusive to his wife, he’d cheated on her with her best friend.

And now he’s going to be charged with her murder.

Oh, Christ. This is all too much. He has to stop lying to the detectives and tell them the truth. “I need a minute with my attorney,” Sam says tersely.

The detective suspends the interview.

···

Lizzie looks down at her phone, pretending to scroll casually, while her mother clasps Clara in her arms on the sofa.

They’ve returned to her place, but they can’t talk about what’s happened because Clara is there, sitting on her grandma’s lap.

Her mother seems to have pulled herself together since earlier, at the condo.

Her father, though, still seems unable to cope with the latest development.

They’d both liked Paige too.

Lizzie peeks at Facebook. The group has exploded since news of the arrests. She sees a post from Brittany Clement.

So her husband AND her best friend have been arrested? How did we not see that coming?

Cynthia Rollo

They were in on it together. Wow, that is cold. They must have been sleeping together.

Deep Diver

I wonder how they caught them. Anyone know?

Lizzie doesn’t dare post anything—her mother is watching her out of the corner of her eye. And she doesn’t know anything. She’s curious too. Now that she’s over the initial shock about Sam, she wants to know the details.

Now there’s an anonymous post.

I know you’re all focused on the arrests right now, but remember the guy on the same floor?

Unlike Deep Diver, I’m not afraid to name him.

It’s Henry Kemp, in unit 811. He was arrested but not charged with the forcible confinement and rape of Kayly Medoff two years ago.

I happen to know he did it, there just wasn’t any proof.

Deep Diver

How do you know?